HKA-001689Literary Tradition
The Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne Ballad
A record in The Hawthorn Archive, preserving folklore with its place, type and source context attached.
Archive record
Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne is a striking narrative in the surviving ballad tradition. Its account of confrontation, disguise and violent rivalry differs in tone from many later, family-friendly presentations of Robin Hood.
The ballad is important evidence for the variety of material associated with the outlaw. The stories were not all written at once, and their surviving manuscripts and printed forms represent different stages in a long process of transmission.
Evidence: surviving ballad text. Source trail: British Library, Percy Folio manuscript tradition; Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.
Catalogue reference HKA-001689
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